AUCD Leadership Academy

The Association of University Centers on Disabilities (AUCD) in partnership with the Centerfor Leadership in Disability at Georgia State University (GSU) is pleased to announce the AUCD LEADERSHIP ACADEMY.

What is the AUCD Leadership Academy

The AUCD Leadership Academy is a week-long program designed to enhance the skills of current and emerging leaders from the disability network in building coalitions that will improve systems of supports and services. The AUCD Leadership Academy seeks participants from Self Advocacy Organizations, UCEDDs, LENDs, CILs, DD Councils, Disability Rights, community based disability organizations, and other disability partners to come together to immerse themselves for a week of study, shared experiences, self-evaluation, and skill development. Participants will continue to engage with their cohort, academy staff, local coaches, and national allies in the year following the experience. The academy will focus on the exploration of shared values and commitments to civil and human rights, assessments of personal and leadership strengths, skills in building partnerships to achieve collective impact, and establishing personal and professional leadership goals.

View informational webinar below:

Leadership Academy Curriculum

Courage to Lead and Circle of Trust

Courage to Lead and Circle of Trust will serve as an organizing framework for the leadership content, which is grounded in the work of Parker Palmer and the Center for Courage & Renewal. This framework:

Is rooted in community organizing with historically disenfranchised groups

Illustrating one of the tenets of Courage to Lead that leadership involves "creating the space where people can discover their resources"

Collective Impact provides a model for sustainable social change that identifies five necessary conditions:

Creating a common agenda

Developing shared measurement and metrics

Working in a manner that is mutually reinforcing

Communicating continuously

Establishing a backbone organization

The model has been put forward as an alternative to work long-conducted in "silos" and often not leading to sustainable change

Self-Awareness and Strengths-based Leadership

Participants will be coached on how to examine and utilize their individual strengths as a leader. Participants will also learn how to identify and nurture the strengths of their colleagues in their place of employment.

The Values in Action (VIA), a strengths-based self-assessment, will be completed by all participants and will guide the discussions on strengths-based leadership during the Academy.

Post-Academy Leadership DevelopmentAfter participating in the Academy, participants will receive the following continued leadership development: (1) year-long coaching; (2) year-long discussions with Leadership Self-Reflection Allies; and (3) access to leadership-related webinars that will serve to bring the cohort together around specific content.

Leadership Coaches: The Leadership coach will support Academy participants in the translating training commitments and skills into action in their home organizations.

Leadership Self-Reflection Allies: The leadership self-reflection ally ("Ally") will support participants' continued personal and professional development after the in-person training. Special emphasis will be on supporting strengths-based leadership development and connection to the broader national network.

Webinars: We will coordinate six post-Academy webinars that cover content deemed important by the Academy participants. We aim to recruit Academy participants to co- lead the webinars when appropriate.

Questions?

For assistance or questions, please call the Center for Leadership in Disabilityat (404) 413-9334 or email aucdacademy@gsu.edu. For more information, please visit:www.cld-gsu.org.